Drop side cribs are old and well-known in the art. These drop sides have latches to hold them up. The latches should be impossible or at least extremely difficult for the infant occupant to actuate, for safety reasons, but at the same time, easy to operate by the nurse who should then be free to manually engage the small child. Also, the drop side should be automatically self-locking so that the nurse may set the child down in the crib and raise the drop side and have it automatically lock with no attention.
If the latches require a ten pound pull (or push), they are often unacceptable to the nurse, and often if double acting, they are cumbersome and complicated. The present invention resides in a double action latch practically impossible to actuate by the infant, but quickly and easily actuated by an adult.